


Where There Are No Hunters

by AlicornAirport



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, Gen, Other, Political Drama, Questions of sociopathy, TW: Abuse of Power, TW: Emotional Manipulation, TW: Prejudice & Bigotry, Toxic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29962008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlicornAirport/pseuds/AlicornAirport
Summary: The cunning fox rolled down the hillRound and round, a spiralThe little sheep felt such a thrillFor she had dragged him soThey fell, they fell, tangled togetherSmiling all the way downOr: how two semi-terrible people consume each other, and change the city.
Relationships: Dawn Bellwether & Leodore Lionheart, Dawn Bellwether & Nick Wilde, Dawn Bellwether/Nick Wilde, Finnick & Nick Wilde, Spoilers - Relationship
Comments: 12
Kudos: 17





	Where There Are No Hunters

**Author's Note:**

> This _is_ , in fact, an AU. And it _does_ contain the relationship in the tags. However, this is not a redemption story, and it's not a happy one (maybe bittersweet). Bellwether hasn't gone all the way down to where she is in the movie, and she's not just evil for the sake of evil, but if you're looking for [Bellwether In Leather Pants](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants), or her being fixed by love, you can look elsewhere.
> 
> The centered symbols represent time (they'll probably only appear in the first chapter and the last one).

Green on green… 

That's how it starts.

Right across the stacks of posters and flyers overpromising change. Eminently noticeable, even through the fake-bright curves of her round-pupil contacts.

**< <<**

Dawn Bellwether learns early on to hate what she loves.

She’s four or five and her father did her wool in puffs just like Sam Rammington’s and she’s buzzing and hopping over the thought of this new place and the pastel walls and all the smiling faces in front of her.

She’s so very good when the teacher asks her to introduce herself and so very strong when Anabelle Lop and a few others play with her puffs until her scalp hurts. Her father says so, though she thinks he sounds tired when he does.

She even reaches out when she sees the wolf pup in the corner. The one no one else will talk to.

Her father tells her not to do that again.

**>**

She’s twelve or thirteen and wearing her favorite sundress and assuring everyone that a sundress is completely different from just a regular dress and dodging crushing steps in the hallway, crashing against unspoken rules and invisible walls with the screeching noise of wind between buildings.

They never apologize.

While dodging, she sees fangs behind parted lips, as dark as cracked hooves. She feels a thrill whose meaning she does not know. 

It’s a dumb little situation, really, but there’s still a little cold prickling _inside_ her spine, a warmth in her ears and a weight in her stomach. Green on green and the promise of new growth on her perennial nervousness. 

At first it makes her excited; it somehow makes her big.

 _Get off the ground_.

**> >**

She pulls on the way-too-expensive tie until his muzzle is level with her own, and her lips feel the tips of his whiskers and the cold of his nose. The fabric has an adorable cloud-and-raindrop pattern.

Research says it helps the campaign’s image for Nicky to have it on.

She takes a kiss from him right before she steps through the curtain, onto the stage. ~~She’s~~ He’s needy. And so very worried and careful.

She never gets to feel his fangs.

**< <<**

She’s a senior, a few years earlier than most. Already admitted to Zoot Tech. Valedictorian, and drama club wannabe.

It’s right after the yearbook planning session.

She sneaks into the boiler room to kiss Colandrea and comes out with slightly bloody lips and a slightly-shattered heart.

The aardwolf comes out with a black eye.

Colandrea has a reputation after that.

**>**

All through her college years, she thinks about the mountain: the unshorn mountain of inadequacies piled on her back. The taunt. _All things grow except for you_. _You stay at the same level._

**> >>**

When Nicky’s in her apartment, he has a habit of slinking about on all fours. 

Nicky’s always in her apartment.

She likes using his ties to lead him around.

**< <**

The pharmacology and public policy double major is good for her scholarship. That, and the much-praised admissions essay about all the solutions she had: solutions she’d been promised by those books her mother didn’t want her reading.

They're both terrible for her mental health. 

All she’s found in these new books is more weight: a dread. Because she’s a sheep. Because of her size. Because she knows she’s supposed to be prone to panic and shock and weakness and she _loves_ learning it. And she hates herself for it, like Nana hated wolves. 

She doesn’t beg respect; she borrows or steals it.

That’s why she’s decided the fang-shiver means fear. The sweetest fear.

Fear that keeps her fumbling for hours after.

Fear that she’s running out of ways to release. Fear that she might not be a good person. That she might not be a person at all.

**•**

If something about yourself makes you afraid, does that make it true? 

She doesn’t know.

So she loves politics and despises and fears every politician that surrounds her, especially that dwarf sheep: the candidate for assistant mayor.

These are the currents of her mind when she spots him casually pocketing a pen. 

It’s right after she’s given the type of rousing speech that makes her smile, when she’s headed to the small office Leodore’s promised to replace with a larger one once they get to City Hall.

It’s right before she can take her contacts out and rest her eyes behind a locked door.

The Fox looks at her… and shivers in fear before she’s had the chance to do the same.

Over _a free pen_.

Right in that intersection of looks. Gone in half a blink.

A different flavor of curiosity, unrelated to the needling taunt, flutters by her mind.

But he remains.

She realizes, unwillingly, that he’s beautiful. Not to imply attraction, but more of a… sculptural fascination. 

**> >**

Dawn _growls._ She growls and pulls and pushes against him in a way that has him using his tongue to protect her own from the sharpness in his mouth.

Dawn growls and he doesn’t.

**•**

Eyes so bright they make her own look dull, even behind the lightening lenses. A coat she can tell is soft and well-cared for. Drug-store products, but still. Soft hints of thin, cabled muscle beneath his short-sleeved patterned dress shirt and fur; they seem to appear just long enough to tease. All the way up his neck. An easy smile on dark lips. Warm fireplace in a wildfire. A clever face. Perfectly together as if to say: _I am made well, don't you think?_

And he is.

A sly face. A little too tense. And a quick shiver of dread.

This Fox, she’s gotta know. 

**> >**

“I’m sorry, where’s the fundraiser, again?”

“Top floor of the Grand Palms, ma’am. Courtesy of Pferdschuh and Young.”

“Thank you for keeping me on track. I swear, my head keeps spinning with all these events.”

“It’s my job, ma’am.” 

“And you're just great at it! Oh, ah, could you call Nicholas, please? Tell him to meet me in the lobby?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

**•**

Dawn decides to bear the dry sting in her eyes a little longer, turning left through the chattering phone bank where her volunteers’ sharp teeth gnash a little every time they talk. Where they won’t come close to stepping on her or growling at her, because they _believe_ in her. Everyone knows Leodore is just the face. Everyone acts like he's more than that, if anyone asks.

She fails to stop at any of the phones. 

The Fox notices. 

His eyes widen the tiniest bit, and she feels like a hunter in her dark blue blazer and pressed blouse. Stalking with quiet strength and menace like an old nursery rhyme. On a dry steppe of low grasses, with only crickets around: _chirrup chirrup._

She feels like she's bounded the room in a single floating step.

And The Fox is frozen.

Which lets her walk until she’s standing right in front of him, and ask, with the demanding, quasi-aristocratic power of someone who knows they were born for office—and with the practiced brightness of someone who's one wrong word from oblivion: “Hi there! Are you volunteering for us?”

The answer should be obvious, but volunteers are wide-eyed lambs, eager to help and serve and make a change; The Fox is smooth and self-assured, standing tall in a room full of mammals twice his size, eager only to glide effortlessly along the faint curve of his own muzzle. And he's completely terrified of her.

Maybe she’ll grab a pen from the box, to see him squirm a little more.

_Really, Dawn?_

“Yeah… Yeah. I am. I just _really believe_ in what Lionheart stands for. Big change for us preds.” He has the tone of a liar, caught red-handed—or wenge-handed, as it were. Dawn should know; she’s used the same tone most of her life. Insecurity. But worse—and even more beautiful—he’s bad at it. 

He’s also said “preds”, as if that were a word anyone would use in a political campaign’s phone bank.

“And what’s your name, big believer?” The candied-yam sweetness of her words should let him know they’re playing the same game. So he extends a paw—padded, clawed, and dark maroon—for her to shake with a dainty touch of manufactured enthusiasm. They’ve touched gloves now, as her father would say. And their eyes are level, though their heads are not.

“Nick,” he answers liquidly, expression settling into a confident half-lid.

“Walk with me, Nicky.” She hopes the name gets so far under his skin he won’t be able to scratch it out. Like the prettiest silk rope, guiding him to follow in her steps.

**> >**

“Walk with me, Nicky,” she whispers. And it’s natural, how it guides him to follow in her steps.

**•**

Between the fang-shiver and the building momentum of all the calculations she’s making as to this intruder, she really can’t tell what the tightening in her jaw is supposed to represent, except something to be kept under control.

He glides alongside her, tail lurking behind in soft, snakelike movements.

“You seem bright-eyed,” the ideal diplomatic opener: slightly funny, complimentary, completely innocuous, accompanied by measured-but-emphatic hoof gestures and a giggle, “in more than one way. You know, when Leodore and I got into this, it was all for mammals like you. Mammals who believe in the future. Who just… _defy_ expectations. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you we don’t get many foxes around here—but that just makes us prouder to have _you_. Someone to help us stand up for the little guy, huh?”

It’s a word-for-word calque of a speech she once got, when she first ran for President of her undergraduate association. And just like then, it says precisely two things: 

  1. You are not qualified for this, by virtue of your species.
  2. I am so merciful and kind and _very_ open-minded when I need to be, so I’ll give you a chance to prove me wrong, as long as it benefits me.



_You’re more than a little sick._ She knows. _But you’re_ good _at this_. She knows that as well.

The bright veneer of hope in her eyes dangles that meaning in front of him. _Come on, Mr. Red Fox. Take the chance at a better lie than the one you’re telling yourself right now_. _Play chess with me, and maybe we’ll be the queened pawns_.

Dawn can tell that despite his fear, he’s holding back an eye-roll. _And the shiver is back_. In her mind, at least, and the pit of her rumen.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Perfect, smooth politeness.

**> >>**

Nicky gives her a poster. It’s a remake, but the name and face on it have changed. And that’s enough.

He probably had it custom-printed.

“Thank you.” It’s barely a whisper. “Thank you, Nicky.”

And she means it.

**•**

“So I want to offer you a job.” _That_ catches him off-balance. Even his tail seems to stumble a little. 

_Sheep got your tongue?_

“I… I’m sorry? Could, uh… I didn’t hear you right.” Fully-clawed paws fidget with his tie, drawing his arms into himself in what seems to be unconscious defense. Even his pace has slowed down to something Dawn can overtake by strolling. “— _Ma’am_ ,” he adds.

“Oh? And with such big ears, too.” She lays a polished hoof in the crook of his elbow. Now she can’t tell whether she’s calmed his paws or frozen them, and she resents caring at all about the question. _The only question_ is whether she can turn this around: take the sculpture of a fox and remold him into something that allows her to help him. And help herself. _Help him turn into a living political calculator? You should write a self-help book Dawny._ "What I said, Nicky—and, forgive my forwardness—is that I want to give you a job. We appreciate our volunteers but, well, you’re our only fox here, like I’m our only sheep. And if you’re the only one, you must be really good at _something_.”

The grin that creeps up on his face is almost malicious. Somewhere between clever and thinking he’s smart. 

_Mirror, mirror…_

**> >**

The press loves his grin. Except for the ones that say it makes them feel uncomfortable.

**•**

“So where are the cameras?” He has a fast brain below those lounging ears. And a temporarily-shattered mask.

She gives him the look of utter innocence that she so hates but is oh-so-necessary when she needs sympathy instead of respect: “What cameras?”

“Yeah, I’m not falling for it. This is an op, right? Show all your following how _inclusive_ and _accepting_ you are? 'Not just sheep but foxes too'!” The sarcastic shake of his hands is almost funny. “Look, cottonball: I’m here because I believe, _yes_ , but I’m also here ‘cause I’ve been around the block enough to know nothing comes this easy for a fox, mmkay? So no disrespect, _ma’am_ , but what’s your angle?”

“My _angle…_ ” Now _she_ ’s fidgeting and he’s winning whatever this is. But she wants him to believe her, “…is the brightness behind your eyes, Nicky, and the fact that I’m looking for consultants right now. And I think you’d be just _super_ at it.” A winning smile, often overshadowed even by the smallest podiums. But she’s good at close quarters.

She can see the rivers flowing inside his head. Unblocking little paths and giving form to his thoughts with a quicksilver speed. Just as dangerous, too. Just as much poison and potential. 

He seems to land on a fresh thought. By the slight widening of his eyes and the relaxation on his shoulders, she can tell he’s decided to pounce on it, with that city-borne liquid grace. She knows the process, though a bit more stumbling and self-edited: _he’s decided on a better lie._

**> >>**

“I love you.” He looks like he’s struggling not to add “ma’am” to the end of that declaration.

**•**

“Why take a chance on me?” Perfect pitch, except for the theatrical quality of it. Might work on someone whose bright eyes hadn’t been dulled by the weight of necessity. But she decides to work with it.

“Because you believe, don’t you?” She hates that the squeak of her voice is its most natural setting. She loves what it helps her achieve. “You really think we got a shot at this. Not because your civics extra credit depends on it—not that that’s _wrong_ —or because you want a good spot on your resume. But because you looked at me like you did.” _What's that supposed to mean?_

“I’m just a volunteer.”

“Exactly.” Hooves come together in a little castanet clap, bubbly and fluttering. “Now come. See if you wanna stick around our ragtag team of political outlaws.”

Like a checkmark on a stamped ballot: green on green.

So he walks with her, and the thoughts of possibility (and gambles) keep her eyes from burning for a while longer.

Her office is a fishbowl. All glass, cluttered with file cabinets and extensions and whiteboards and corkboards, placed right where its curtainless existence draws the eye of anyone who gets further than the lobby. Its sliding glass door, a feeding hatch. The freezing air conditioning duct at the very top of its unnecessary triple height, a filter.

They both slide in.

**> >**

He slides in around 2 AM, every time, and brings her strong black tea.

**•**

The Fox's pupils roll and flit around, taking in the towers and piles and messes of cables that cover every available space.

She likes records only she can see, so she pulls out a notepad… and a free campaign pen.

“I _am_ serious about the job, you know. But first—” he seems to calculate, through the caramel wall of her words, what challenge she'll present to him—“I need to know what you took, and how much.”

She stands between him and the door, clicking the cheap wooden pen, and gives him a genuine smile: “I really hope it wasn't just the pen. Those are free, you know?”

“Yeah. _Yeah_ . I _know_ that.” _No, you don’t._ “That’s why I took one. A reminder of my time helping…” his paw describes nervous circles in the air between them… “make a change.”

Dawn fixes him with an over-the-glasses look of disappointment.

“I can’t give you the job if you don’t tell me _everything_.”

“Yeah, and then you call someone up to come and arrest me.”

**< <**

She’s twenty-three and she’s getting coffee for the campaign office, the day after Colandrea got shocked to death by a TAME restraint.

It was in the news and she’s drafting the statement.

All she can think about is _what if she hadn’t shown her teeth?_

Later, she realizes she didn’t even see the footage.

**•**

“I could call someone to come and arrest you _or_ I could give you the job. And, ah…” _Oh yarnballs, now you’re giggling. Ugh. No one that isn’t you needs to know you’re a psycho._ “Only one of those needs you to do something.” 

There's a pause that would've made her unsure, before she got used to her daily gambles.

“...I was out canvassing.” He pulls out a green-and-blue lockbox from his messenger bag, festooned with more stickers than a subway wall. Lionheart-Bellwether stickers. “And taking donations.”

**> >**

“And we very much appreciate your support, Mrs. Quill. It helps mammals like me and Nicky over here get a voice in City Hall.” Now a winning smile. And a quick parading him around. She wonders if he's used to doing it, himself.

**•**

The book-sized lockbox lands on her desk with a heavy thump. She needs a way to spin this, but the idea might not be terrible: _don't trust the website? Give us some pocket change and get a sticker that says you made change happen._

O'Cú can probably tell her how it won't work, and how they'll _make_ it work. They'd either viscerally hate or adore the pun, too.

She adds to her little building list of potential: 

  1. Charismatic, apparently.
  2. Terrible sense of aesthetics.



“I'm not convincing you that's all of it, am I?” _You were until you said that._

  1. Self-defeating



**< < • >>**

Maybe it's all lies, and she's comfortable with that.

The pull.

The green.

The game.

The endless spiral, up and down and always circling.

**•**

And that's how it starts.


End file.
